From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Brian Carnell on Minimum Wage
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 1996 20:47:31 -0600 (CST)


   1As I have noted in another post, boddhisatva need not be attended to,
being a bit of trivia, but as a stopped clock is correct twice a day, even
assholes can be partly right part of the time. And he happens to be right
that minimum-wage laws help (thougyh nutty in denying other forms of
struggle). And Brian Carnell falls into the cesspool (inhabited by the
like of the WSJ and Big Wheel economists)when he puts forth the
shit that minimum wage levels do nothing but increase unemployment.

    As a matter of fact, the matter of both the minimum wage and
the content of the struggle for it could be an important topic for
this list to pursue. I should like to start it off by noting that
a job (and thus "employment" or "unemployment") is NOT a "thing" like
a stone or an electron or even an idea like *pi* or the speed of light;
it is a SOCIAL RELATIONSHIP, and thus its content is subject to
constant social struggle. Hence it is literal non-sense, pure gibberish,
to state that "X decreases (or increases) unemployment."

    The human activity which is remunerated at the rate of the
present minimum wage is *not* a "job," and the elimination (usingy)
arbitrary figures for illustrative purposes) of 10 such "jobs" and
the replacement of 40 of them with human activity paid at (say) $7
dollars an hour would be a net gain of 40 jobs. (Actually, I think
it can be argued that it is an ideological illusion that even $7 an hour
constitutes a job.)

    In any case, it is almost certainly not true that even in bourgeois
terms a higher minimum wage generates "unemployment"; it is at least as
likely to increase employment. This argument is one of the slimier of
the current scams of capitalism in the United States--and it induces
vomit to see someone on this l*st repeat it.
    Carrol


At 8:13 pm 3/3/96 Brian Carnell wrote:


> At 08:22 AM 3/2/96 EST, boddhisatva wrote:
>
> >    It's very simple, nobody but labor unions is going to support working
> >people economically.  No revolution is imminent and no laws, except for a
> >minimum wage will help.  Labor is the only faction that can make a clear,
> >logical argument about wage stagnation, what causes it, and what to do about
> >it.  Non-union workers clearly benefit from unions.  Anything that raises the


> >prevailing wage is good for workers.
>
> The only thing minimum wages do is increase unemployment for non-union and,
> to a lesser degree, members of unions.  Can you please explain how
> unemployment benefits non-union workers???
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Brian Carnell
> briand-AT-carnell.com
>
>
>
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>



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